Want to Participate in the "Cloaked" Cover Reveal Event?

So, you know I'm working on independently publishing my book Cloaked, which is "Little Red Riding Hood" re-imagined as a western. Like my story in Five Magic Spindles, "The Man on the Buckskin Horse," was "Sleeping Beauty" re-imagined as a western. Same idea, whole new cast of characters and setting and story.

I'm pretty sure you know about this because I've been talking about it on my blogs off-and-on for like a year now.

It's my first time doing the indie-pub thing. I'm nervous. I'm excited. I'm terrified. I'm thrilled. And I'm almost done with this thing at last. Like, seriously, this book will be out in September. I don't have a firm date yet, but it's coming. For real.

(This popped up in my Pinterest feed today.  Perfect timing.)

I'm going to be asking for some Advance Readers soon. Very soon. But first... I'd kind of like to do something fun to celebrate my cover being finished and ready to share. I've been working with graphic designer Erika Ohlendorf on a cover for my book, and... it's basically done. We've got like one more tweak to do. Which means that next week, I will be sharing it with all of you!

I know a number of you, my lovely and supportive and encouraging blogging friends, have been looking forward to seeing what the cover will look like. (And to reading the book, too, I hope!) If you would like to join me in showing off the cover on your blogs or in social media this coming Wednesday, Sept. 6, please email me at rachelkovaciny at gmail dot com with "Cloaked cover reveal" in the subject line.

All participants will receive my gratitude, fake internet points, and an imaginary hug :-)

"Five Poisoned Apples" Cover Reveal and Contest Info

Today's the day you've been waiting for!  The day that Rooglewood Press announces their final fairy tale retelling contest!  And I get to be part of the reveal, so here it is:

I think this is the prettiest cover yet.  If you're curious, the photo is by Wynter Clark, and the design is by Julia Popova, who also designed the previous covers in the series.

If you're interested in entering the contest, the official page is right here.

You all know I won the last contest with my story "The Man Buckskin Horse," which is now available in the Five Magic Spindles collection.  I'm excited to also announce that I'm going to be involved in the publication of Five Poisoned Apples too -- but this time as a judge!  That's going to be such fun.  I'm looking forward to it so much, I'm posting about this on both of my blogs!

"Once" by Elisabeth Grace Foley, Rachel Heffington, J. Grace Pennington, Emily Ann Putzke, Suzannah Rowntree, and Hayden Wand

The idea behind Once is pretty genius:  six authors who enjoy writing historical fiction and fantasy band together to self-publish a collection of fairy tale retellings in various historical (and imaginary) settings.  And if you like fairy tale retellings, or are already a fan of any of these authors, you're most likely going to enjoy this collection.

I've already read something by several of these authors, whether it's been a story in one of the Rooglewood Press collections, Five Glass Slippers and Five Enchanted Roses or something they've self-published elsewhere.  And as a whole, Once reminded me a lot of those collections -- fun and imaginative and not trying to be Serious Literature, but just here to entertain.

I was especially interested in reading "The Mountain of the Wolf" because I've really liked the other westerns I've read by Elisabeth Grace Foley, especially her western Cinderella, "Corral Nocturne."  In this retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, a handsome stranger meets a lonely woman living on the edge of the wilderness.  Little by little, he learns the reason for her seclusion:  she wants to find and kill the man who murdered her brother.  By the time I finished reading "The Mountain of the Wolf," I was sure it would be my favorite story in the collection.

And then I read "She But Sleepeth" by Rachel Heffington, and was like, "Oh, nope, THIS is going to be my favorite."  You'd think I'd be a little tired of the Sleeping Beauty story after writing my own retelling, "The Man on the Buckskin Horse" and then reading and re-reading the other four stories from Five Magic Spindles too, but "She But Sleepeth" was a very, very different take from any of those.  In it, a movie set designer and her handsome intern traveled to Romania to research a castle for an upcoming movie.  There, they unexpectedly time-travel back a hundred years and learn that the intern is actually a princess, lost to her parents through the machinations of an angry Gypsy.  I really like fish-out-of-water stories, and the two people from today trying to navigate life a hundred years in the past tickled my fancy.

But then I read "Rumpled" by J. Grace Pennington, a steampunk retelling of the Rumplestiltskin story.  It so happens that Rumplestiltskin has always fascinated me in a repellent sort of way -- when I was a kid, it was one I read over and over.  This is the most straight-forward retelling, in that there's still a poor girl, a king who wants what she supposedly can create, and an ugly little man who helps her in exchange for the promise of her firstborn child.  The addition of all kinds of technology to the story gave it a fresh vibe, but it was the characters that made me decide this was my favorite story -- I found both girl and king very realistic and sweet.

However, when I read "Sweet Remembrance," Emily Ann Putzke's retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Match Girl," and I knew it was actually my favorite.  Set in a Jewish ghetto during WWII, the story of two young people who found and then gradually lost each other, their world, and then their whole lives made me cry more than once.  It was achingly beautiful, and the fact that people like these really did live through horrors like that made it even more poignant.  I love learning about WWII, both from non-fiction and from fiction -- that time period fascinates me endlessly, and this story was obviously well researched, which I appreciated.

I had to put this book down for a day after finishing "Sweet Remembrance" so I could process my feelings about it.  But then I read "Death Be Not Proud" by Suzannah Rowntree, a lively retelling of Snow White set in New Zealand during the Roaring Twenties, and I had to change my mind AGAIN because it was obviously my favorite.  You know I love F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and I've become increasingly interested in the 1920s of late, so the setting definitely drew me in.  But it was the murder mystery at the heart of the story that made me love it, and the way the Snow White elements were not staggeringly obvious, but instead were woven subtly throughout.  

You're probably expecting this, but when I reached the end of the collection and read Hayden Wand's "With Blossoms Gold," I knew I had finally found my true favorite story of the six.  This is a Rapunzel retelling with some amazing twists.  For one, the girl hasn't been imprisoned in a tower, she's staying there for her own safety.   And for another, it tackles head-on what it's like to live with panic attacks.  I have friends who suffer from panic attacks, anxiety, and depression in one form or another, and I absolutely loved the way Hayden Wand compassionately described how debilitating these can be, what a real problem they are, how they are not just imaginary things people could "get over" if they tried hard enough.  Also, both of the main characters had wonderful character arcs and truly grew as people over the course of the story, facing fears, sacrificing things for each other, and ultimately learning to understand both each other and themselves so beautifully.  

I don't know if there are plans to release this collection in paperback format at some point, but I hope that does happen, because I want Once on my real bookshelf, not just my Kindle carousel.  

Just so you know, I did receive an ARC of this book in exchange for me promising to review it honestly. 

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence, some suspenseful moments, mildly scary scenes, and a couple instances of mild bad language.  There's also some kissing, alcohol use, and discussion of people being married in name only.  Fine for teens, but I'm not going to let my 9-year-old read it until he's older.

Five Magic Bookmarks -- Winners

Congratulations to the five winners! They are:

Cowboy -- Carissa H.
Horse -- Lynn L.
Castle -- Rayleigh G.
Dragon -- Hayden W.
Moon -- Ally M.

Please check your email for a message from me asking for your mailing address so I can get these sent off.

And to all of you, whether you won or not -- I'm holding another giveaway on my Hamlette's Soliloquy blog starting Monday to celebrate Legends of Western Cinema Week! Check back then to see what I'm giving away :-)

Five Magic Bookmarks -- A Giveaway

Today's the day!  Five Magic Spindles gets officially released today!  Yes, I'm quite giddy.  Again.  I've gotten giddy many times during this long, fun experience, starting the day I found out "The Man on the Buckskin Horse" won the contest.  But today, at last, I can hold a book with my name on the cover in my own hands.  This is dream-like and glorious.

And I want to share the joy.  So I've created five bookmarks, one for each of these really fun Sleeping Beauty retellings.  Five of YOU will each win one.  Does that make you a bit giddy too?  Here they are, paired with the title page of the appropriate story that inspired them:

This giveaway runs through Friday, July 29.  I will draw five winners on Saturday, July 30, and post the names of the winners that day, as well a notify them by email.

I can only send these to US addresses because of shipping being so expensive these days. Of course, if you live outside the US, but have a friend who lives in the US that is willing to have it shipped to them for you, that's fine.  But I can't send them internationally.

PLEASE make sure your information for the giveaway widget includes your current email address so that if you win a prize, you'll get the email informing you that you won! If you don't reply to my email within one week, I will choose another winner and award your prize to them instead.

The first way to enter, as you see, asks you to leave a comment telling me your top two prize choices. I do my best to match winners with their choice of prizes, but that doesn't always work out.  I will do my best.  You can leave that comment right in the widget this time.

So enter via this widget:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'm running this giveaway on this blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy, and my Facebook author page -- you can enter at any or all of those places.

The Rose-Covered Cabin: Inkling Explorations for June, 2016

The prompt for this month's Inkling Explorations link-up is "Roses in book or film."  And I'm going to do something very different this month.  I'm going to share an excerpt of my own writing, namely, a passage from "The Man on the Buckskin Horse."  Actually, my original title for my western retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story was "The Rose-Covered Cabin," but it got changed to something more distinctly western-y when it won a spot in the Five Magic Spindles anthology.

Anyway!!!  Here's the excerpt:

I have long considered the Owenses' little place the prettiest this side of the Platte River. The cabin rests at the bottom of a small depression in the land, right along a reliable stream bordered by cottonwoods and such. I remember how poor Juliet brought roses with her from back East, bundle after bundle of dead-looking sticks so far as I could see. But somehow she coaxed them to grow around her new little home. I'm grateful she lived long enough to see the way they flourished, how they climbed up the walls clear to the roof and on over it. When those roses are in bloom, you couldn't paint a nicer picture, and their scent more than masks what you'll smell if the sheep are pastured nearby. I suspect that might be one reason Juliet planted so many of them.

(Source)

I am so excited about this book getting released!  Only a month to wait now -- July 22 is the official date, though you can preorder it (paperback and Kindle editions) from Amazon now.  This is my first time winning a major contest, and the first time my fiction will be for sale in a real book, which makes it all even more thrilling.  The Kindle version was in the top 100 for fantasy anthologies a couple of days ago, and it hasn't even been released yet!

Don't forget to visit Heidi's blog, Sharing the Journey, to find links to all the others who participated this month, and to join in yourself if you so desire!